Foreign Office Minister Lord Malloch-Brown says that the British government is not convinced at that the Mujahideen-e Khalq has given up terrorism, saying its forced disarmament by US forces was”entirely pragmatic.” During the Iraq war, the MKO was”considered by coalition forces to be completely assimilated into the security apparatus of the Saddam Hussein regime,”Malloch-Brown said. “Indeed, we had to disarm the organization to the extent of 2,100 tanks, vehicles and artillery pieces. Since then it has made no renunciation of terrorism and disarmed only in the face of pressure from coalition forces,”he said. Prime Minister Gordon Brown confirmed in December that the British government would not deproscribe the MKO, saying there was”no evidence”it had changed and that it was”certainly the case it has been involved in terrorist activity.” Speaking during a House of Lords debate, the Foreign Office minister added that there was also”no evidence that the organization has publicly renounced violence and terrorism.” “We have to be consistent in our views of terrorists,”he told supporters of protracted attempts to have the MKO removed from Britain’s domestic list of proscribed organizations, suggesting they had been falsely influenced. “When we like the people whom terrorists attack, we call them ‘terrorists,’ when it is the civilians of Iran who are attacked, we have a bad habit of thinking of them as liberation fighters,”Malloch-Brown said. “Terrorism and its tactics are objectionable irrespective of the target,”he said. The MKO was”responsible for a number of serious military attacks over a very long period of time,”he said without listing the hundred of Iranians killed in terrorist assassinations. “There is a big difference between military campaigns that fall within the Geneva conventions and the rest of international law and abusive campaigns that target asymmetrically civilians. I hope we have a consistent policy towards such groups,”the minister added. “Its disarming was entirely pragmatic-in the event of the coalition forces forcing it to disarm after the intervention in Iraq,”he emphasized. Malloch Brown also said that despite its claims on supporting women’s rights and being led by a woman,”we are not convinced that in other regards this organization has permanently renounced terrorism.” “Until we are convinced that the organization has really foresworn those tactics, we continue to believe it to be a threat to civilians,”he said. Feb 6, IRNA
Anne Khodabandeh, who is of British nationality and the wife of the Iranian
Massoud Khodabandeh, replied to the article published by "Alseyassah" on the first of this month under the heading "Iraqi warnings from the agent of the Iranian regime by the name of Massoud Khodabandeh", in a letter sent to the cultural office at the embassy of the State of Kuwait in London, of which "Alseyassah" has received a copy. In the reply, Massoud says that "the article was slanderous and defamatory to my good name and unfortunately its anonymous writer did not try to contact me by email or by telephone or at my address in Britain, or at the Centre de Recherches sur le Terrorism in Paris where I work". He refers to the scurrilous accusation made by the remnants of the Baathist regime in Iraq which links his name and his wife’s name to the Iranian intelligence services – which is completely untrue and there is not a shred of evidence for the lies which appear in that article. 
He also gives the reason why it was published. Mr Khodabandeh explains that he lives in the United Kingdom and is currently visiting Iraq at the invitation of government officials, and was invited in order to attend various meeting on the issue of foreign terrorist groups in Iraq. He adds that "in the course of this work I have regular contact with the US army and relevant humanitarian bodies and I am seeking ways to rescue people from the hands of the Saddamists in Diyali province". He considers that "as all Kuwaiti citizens know all too well, the "Mojahedin-e Khalq" organisation acted as Saddam’s private army in Iraq and helped to crush the Kurdish uprising in 1991 at the end of the first Gulf war. The Iraqi Government is now determined to remove all remnants of the Baathist regime, including the Iranian foreign terrorist group "Mojahedin-e Khalq", from its territory". He adds "I have travelled to Iraq to help those people who want to leave the group to find refuge and return to their families and to normal life."
He concludes by saying that readers of the newspaper "Alseyassah" will understand now why the Saddamists have tried to blacken his name and he states that the paper’s editors have acted properly in giving him the right to reply.
In this connection, it is important for "Alseyassah" to explain to Mr and Mrs Khodabandeh and to our readers that what was published on the first of February was an announcement and not an article and it was not simply ascribed to anonymous sources but it made clear in it that it was an announcement issued by the "League of Iraqi Academics and Educationalists" and it is important to explain that the accusations made by the League that Mrs Ann and her husband are "working in the service of the Iranian security services in Iraq and that they are carrying out the tasks of the Iranian regime under false pretences" were accusations carried by "Alseyassah" but not espoused by it, as was stated in the announcement itself.
I’m very excited and pleased to introduce today’s guest poster, Danny Postel,
who comes to us with some absolutely chilling revelations about the bad faith of the neoconservatives’ supposed dedication to”freedom”(I know, I know: you’re shocked). Danny is the author of Reading “Legitimation Crisis” in Tehran: Iran and the Future of Liberalism and is co-coordinator of the Committee for Academic and Intellectual Freedom of the International Society for Iranian Studies. —Rick Perlstein By Danny Postel During the week of October 22-26, an official announcement effuses, “The nation will be rocked by the biggest conservative campus protest ever – Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week, a wake-up call for Americans on 200 university and college campuses.” Ringmastered by David Horowitz, this circus will be performing under the tent of something called the”Terrorism Awareness Project.” The purpose of this ballyhoolooza, we are told, is to confront the “Big Lies” of the Left regarding terrorism and militant Islam. Worthy subjects, to be sure. Indeed I would like to help the sponsors of the “wake-up call” promote awareness of them. Toward this end, let’s consider the American Right’s “special relationship” with one group of terrorists. The U.S. State Department officially considers the Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MEK) a Foreign Terrorist Organization. While those honors date back to 1994, they’ve been renewed during the Bush years. Indeed in 2003 Foggy Bottom went further, including the National Council of Resistance of Iran — an MEK alias — under the terrorist designation. (The MEK is also known as the People’s Mujahedeen.) To make a long and bizarre story short, the MEK got its start in early 1960s Iran, helped overthrow the Shah in 1979, but quickly turned on the revolutionary government it helped bring to power. Employing an ideological blend of Stalinism and Islamism, the tactics of a paramilitary guerilla faction, and the organizational structure of a cult, the group went into exile, eventually making their home in Iraq in the mid-1980s. Not only did Saddam give the organization cover: he armed, funded, and utilized them for a variety of ends over two decades. The group’s wicked political brew was on spectacular display on the old MEK flag (see below; since abandoned) [editor, Iran-Interlink – this is still the official MEK logo], with its sickle and Kalashnikov positioned atop ofbeneath a Koranic verse. (Not — to state the obvious — that the mere presence of a Koranic verse in and of itself implies Islamist political commitments, but in this case the shoe very much fits.) Here you have virtually everything the Right claims to oppose all rolled into one: Islamism, Marxism, terrorism, and Saddam. Naturally, then, neoconservatives would utterly deplore the MEK and everything it stands for, right? The MEK would in fact make an ideal target for Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week and Terrorism Awareness efforts, no? Well, no. At least one of the carnival’s acts, it turns out, is rather fond of the Islamo-Stalinist-terrorist cult group, and has repeatedly argued for the removal of the MEK from the State Department’s list of terrorist groups and indeed urged the U.S. government to embrace it. Daniel Pipes, who will be speaking at Tufts on October 24th as part of the Horowitz high jinks, has made the MEK a recurring theme in his writings going back several years. Pipes has also gone to bat for the MEK right in the pages of Horowitz’s house organ. But Pipes is far from alone on the Right in championing the MEK. He co-authored the first piece linked to above with Patrick Clawson of the right-wing Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Right-wing commentator Max Boot has argued not merely for the removal of the MEK from the terrorist list but for funding and unleashing it to do battle with Iranian forces — this while casually acknowledging that it is a “political cult.” (More on Boot’s disfigured views .) In some cases the MEK plays a stealth role in the media machinery of the American Right. What the FOX News Channel tells viewers about Alireza Jafarzadeh when he appears on its airwaves is that he is an “FNC Foreign Affairs Analyst.” What you have to go to the FOX News website to discover, however, is that Jafarzadeh served “for a dozen years as the chief congressional liaison and media spokesman for the U.S. representative office of Iran’s parliament in exile, the National Council of Resistance of Iran.” But it is scarcely known that the sonorous-sounding National Council of Resistance of Iran is in fact a front name for the MEK. Now, it’s true that Jafarzadeh discontinued his post with the National Council of Resistance of Iran—but only when (and only because) its Washington office was forced to close in 2003 as a result of the State Department decision about it being a front for the MEK. It’s not like he had a change of heart. If you attend an “Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week” event, you might want to ask the speakers about this terrorist cult and whether they condemn it. Some of them might — not all neoconservatives agree on the MEK. But the fact that several prominent American conservatives have cozied up to an Islamist-Stalinist cult that was on Saddam’s payroll and the State Department considers a terrorist organization — this raises serious questions (to put it mildly) about the Right’s bedfellows and the calculus that determines them. It suggests the need for a little more terrorism awareness. CRIMES AND CORRUPTION OF THE NEW WORLD ORDER NEWS –infowars.net
It goes without saying that Rajavi resorted to armed struggle expecting the support of international and foreign powers. Rajavi’s visit to France in early 1981, where he was given a glad hand winning propaganda support and facilities for settlement, was followed with declaration of military phase. It is evident that all such activities on the part of France aimed at exploiting Mojahedin in order to make due political changes in Iran. According to some MKO ex-members (e.g. Lotfollah Meisami), Rajavi was well aware of global transitions and even before initiating the armed phase was willing to make use of leftist parties and USSR-oriented groups whenever necessary. In this regard, Meisami writes:
Rajavi knows that world is divided into the West and the East and for sure is aware of their reciprocal understanding due to his political awareness. When released from prison, he got a formula according to which he had to make the West and the East satisfied to assume power. On the one hand, he makes secret contacts with the Soviets Union to make them convinced to rely on Mojahedin rather than Tudeh party pretending to be the greatest opposition group in Iran, and on the other hand, invited Western-oriented groups and parties for dialogue and negotiation. In fact he had relations with both the U.S. and the USSR. (1)
As such, he tried to recruit some Liberal intelligentsia with capitalism tendency including Hedayatollah Matindaftari, Ali-Asqar Haj Seyyed Javadi, Manuchehr Hezarkhani, Abdolkarim Lahiji, Fereydun Gilani, and later on Jamshid Peyman, some SAVAK members and Moezzi, Shah’s private pilot. An interesting point is that after the annihilation of Socialism camp, Rajavi turned to Western-oriented liberals, some of whom are already in NCR, and Rajavi makes use of their international reputation for attracting the attention and gaining the legitimacy regarding his liberalist mottos. Another instance of such an opportunistic policy is the case of Sa’adatti and delivering the case of General Moqarrabi, former member of Tudeh party, to Russians which had great consequences on armed phase for the organization. In fact, all these actions might be justified under the pretext of the world being divided into two camps of capitalism and socialism with Mojahedin’s pretentious strategic tendency towards the latter at the time. As implicitly stated by Saeed Shahsavandi, MKO made efforts preferably in winning the supports of USSR to assume political power:
In fact the purpose of organization’s contact with the USSR is gaining facilities and being armed as an authorized group. (2)
However, these facts reveal the major policy of MKO regarding the strategic role of the either camps in achieving the political power. But soon after the fall of socialism, the organization made an immediate shift toward the opposite camp.
We are to emphasize the fact that Rajavi’s opportunistic orientation in winning the political power and support of influential figures in international relations as well as world powers has been one of his goals in which his success depended upon the political status of NCR, MKO and also Rajavi’s talent in convincing them of the possibility of overthrowing the Iranian regime with regard to the potentiality of Mojahedin. In fact, the organization recruited members from both leftist parties and liberals as a means for achieving its objectives in due time. The fact that West in general and Europeans in particular, in spite of being aware of the terrorist actions of Mojahedin, supported the organization implies their fostered hope in fulfillment of the promise by Mojahedin to overthrow the Iranian government.
The countries attitude, however, ceased once they realized that the second revolution was not at hand. For instance, the France government, as the main supporter of Mojahedin, changed its stance concerning Mojahedin. It has to be pointed out that Mojahedin’s freedom for political and propaganda activities in France exceeded the supposed rights of refugees in international conventions which resulted in quantitative and qualitative growth of the National Council of Resistance to posture as a liable main opposition. However, the NCR soon proved to be incapable of winning the slightest significant victory and its advocates resolved to look at it with a more realistic and cautious eye and began to withdraw their support. Referring to Mojahedin’s strategies and tactics in the Europe for winning propaganda support Antoine Gessler observes:
The People’s Mojahedin of Iran, as we have seen, are past masters in the manipulative arts. Like many far Left organisations, they know the gears that run the media. And they are very gifted at”smoke screening”reporters. (3)
Additionally, he refers to opportunistic, dualistic and pragmatist features of Mojahedin seeking legitimacy and attention of outsiders and writes:
In addition, the Mojahedin are superb lobbyists,”tracking”down political officials, deputies, senators, etc., to get a signature which is supposed to support the PMOI’s fight and provide recognition to it as the only legitimate opposition. (4)
Bijan Niyabati, a leftist member of NCR, illustrates such a condition affected by the illusionary promise of overthrow and says explicitly:
The strength of military strokes of Mojahedin against top Iranian officials spread the false picture of short-term overthrow of Iranian regime not only among Iranian political activists but also foreign parties. (5)
Therefore, the political supports given to Mojahedin and their militancy were replaced by a logical withdrawal and all those governments that had neglected illegal plots of Mojahedin in their countries, and in France in particular, in the hope of establishing relationship with the so-called alternative of the Iranian government had to limit the group’s freedom. Rajavi’s hopes dashed, he had to seek new approaches to strengthen inter-organizational constancy and adopt a defensive mechanism before reaching unavoidably consequent crises.
Niyabati acknowledges the fact that the pressure of foreign forces exerted on Mojahedin made them make some new decisions, change their external relations and internal structure. According to him, the main changes occurred in the geometrical form of internal structure of both MKO and NCR. Before the change, Mojahedin claimed to be the hegemonic lead of a united front of oppositions through a council leadership, but after being in disgrace with western supporters, they were forced to demonstrate their real anti-democratic nature which Rajavi and his sympathizers tried to conceal under a variety of theoretical justifications:
The sum of internal and international pressures and their political impacts on the National Council of Resistance, the strategic failure of armed struggle and its organizational impacts on MKO, the lack of public support in its real concept, and most important of all, an urging need to take advantage of the Iraqi soil followed by a shift from the strategy of micro to macro, which despite the Mojahedin’s claim to be promoting their previous strategy was an acknowledgement of the failure of their old strategy, necessitated MKO to turn into a full pyramidal organization that had to be absolutely ideological. (6)
As Niyabati justifies, the ideological revolution was, in some respect, an inevitable consequent of dwindled foreign supports and its impacts on MKO and NCR. France ventured to assist Mojahedin at a time when it had taken a hostile stance toward Iran and broadly contributed military and logistic aids to Saddam in his war against Iranian aiming at overthrowing the Iranian government. After a while and due to new circumstances, France had to make a revision in its policy toward Iran. Although Mojahedin had earlier made the grounds for moving to Iraq by inviting Tareq Aziz, then Vice Prime Minister to Saddam, but their destabilized conditions in France and the internal conflicts in NCR were the best justification for such a transfer. In a nutshell, their policy in moving to Iraq may be considered as a result of the loss of support of western governments and France in particular. Moreover, the initiation of the ideological revolution was a precautionary defensive measure aiming at controlling the forthcoming challenges.
References:
1. Meisami, L.; The moral decline of a Mojahed. Raah-e Mojahed journal, (32), 1985.
2. Saeed Shahsavandi interview with the voice of Iran. Part 50.
3. Antoine Gessler; Autopsy of an Ideological Drift, 163.
4. ibid.
5. Niyabati, B. A different look at the internal ideological revolution of Mojahedin. p.12.
6. ibid, p.20.
Hot Pursuit into Syria, Iran, had been authorized; US Kills Innocents at Adwar Mass Grave with 50 Bodies Found at Samarra The Bush administration authorized hot pursuit of Iraqi Baathists into Syria and Iran, according to a just-released document at wikileak. The document also reveals that as late as 2005, the US military authorities were still unaware that the "mobile weapons labs" were a Neocon scam and never existed. (Biological weapons labs require a clean room, difficult to install on a winnebago). The document shows that by 2005, the US military had a de facto truce with the Mahdi Army (a paramilitary whose political party parent actually joined the Iraqi government later that year). It also shows that the Mojahedin-i Khalq terror group engaged in hostile action toward the US forces, but also were granted a truce in 2005. The MEK is an Iranian terror group that has killed civilians inside Iran and was given a base in Iraq by Saddam Hussein. US Neoconservatives have tended to support it and to want to use it to do further terrorism against Iran. The MEK has been defended by Patrick Clawson of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (the think tank of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee) and by notorious Islamophobe and Giuliani adviser Daniel Pipes. Danny Postel explains cogently. In other words, key figures in the Israel lobbies support a terrorist group that has fired on US troops. US forces raided the village of Adwar south of Tikrit on Monday, and appear to have mistakenly killed an Awakening Council fighter, a woman and two children, wounding another girl as well. It may be that they were baited into firing on the family by anti-American guerrillas. This mistake is the second such in recent days, and adds to a strain felt between the Sunni Arab Awakening Councils and their American patrons. The LAT reports on how difficult it has been for the US military to root out the Salafi Jihadi extremists from Diyala province. Sawt al-Iraq reports in Arabic that hundreds of Iraq’s actors and performers staged a demonstration on Sunday in front of the national theater in Baghdad to protest their loss of livelihood and dire economic straits. They called on Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to improve their incomes just as he had for government employees. Unlike US screenwriters, they can’t even go on strike– they are already largely unemployed. Reuters reports political violence on Monday: ‘SAMARRA – Iraqi police and members of a neighborhood police unit found a mass grave containing about 50 bodies in an area west of Samarra, 100 km (60 miles) north of Baghdad, police said. Security forces had been searching for al Qaeda fighters when they found a house with 10 people inside who had been kidnapped from the area. Some of those inside led police to the grave. Three car bombs were also found. KHALIS – Six suspected militants were killed during operations by U.S. forces targeting al Qaeda near Khalis, 80 km (50 miles) north of Baghdad. Three died when one of the suspected militants detonated a vest packed with explosives. Another three were killed by U.S. soldiers in a nearby building. [Taji] – One member of a neighborhood police unit and a civilian were killed by a suicide bomber close to an internet cafe at Taji, 20 km (12 miles) north of Baghdad, a local tribal leader said. . .’ McClatchy adds: ‘Baghdad Two civilians were injured in an IED explosion that targeted an American convoy in Palestine Street east Baghdad around 12:00 pm. Police found four bodies in Baghdad today. Three bodies were found in Rusafa, the eastern side of Baghdad in the following neighborhoods (1 body in Ur, 1 body in Jisr Diyala and 1 body in Shaab). The fourth body was found in Washash neighborhood in Karkh, the western side of Baghdad. Misan Three officers in the Iraqi army were killed by gunmen in three different neighborhoods in Umara city south of Baghdad today morning. The first officer was a colonel who was a Lieutenant Colonel who was killed in al Askari neighborhood downtown Umara city. The second officer was a Major who was killed in the new buildings neighborhood downtown [A]mara city while the third officer was Lieutenant who was killed in his car while he was returning back home in al Uroba neighborhood downtown [A]mara city. Anbar A source in the Sahwa council of Sheikh Sanad said that three members of the Sahwa were killed and five others were injured when a suicide bomber wearing an explosive vest detonated himself near one of the check point of the Sahwa office of Sheikh Sanad Abdul Salim in Thiraa Dijla area east of Ramadi city at 3:30 pm.’
A few months ago, a British court called POAC tried to ask for deproscription of Rajavi’s cult from the terror list. The cult also used the opportunity to launch a lot of propaganda on that ruling and acted as if the ruling was executed and the cult is removed from the list.
While MKO was busy cheering for the ruling, British government didn’t recognize the ruling and the court took the complaint to higher authorities. This act of British government meant as MKO’s stay on the list of the country and disappearance of the cult’s happiness carnival.
A few weeks after the mentioned challenges, the cult went on publishing an article written by Lord Corbette, the chairman of Labour Party. In the article, Corbette accused the British government of appeasing Iranian government since it has refused the ruling of POAC court, asking Straw to apologize to the cult and to dismiss the cult’s illegality. Corbette supported Maryam Rajavi writing that” she struggles for women’s right and a secular government in Iran!”
Now, he needs to consider some points:
1. The honorable Lord Corbette! Why don’t you take a look at women of Camp Ashraf before talking about Maryam Rajavi and her women’s rights? Why don’t you investigate if there is any human doctrine or rhetoric in which women are kept away from their origin and
2. family? Is it a women’s right to be forced to do hard work becoming a stone hearted person?
3. We suggest that Lord Corbette looks for the conditions of the defectors of the cult who are wondering in Iraq or looking for refuge in European countries. Why don’t you listen to former supporters and later dissidents talking about the dictatorship ruling the cult?
4. If Jack Straw should apologize from the cult due to preventing the cult from the activities that lead to the destruction of the members, who should apologize those broken hearts due to wrong policies of Rajavis?
5. Dear Lord Corbette, if the stay of MKO cult on terror list is “ppeasing Iranian government “ who are you appeasing by supporting such a cult?
6. You cry on the bodies of your soldiers who voluntarily or by force attack the innocent people of another country but you consider these spies, traitors and Saddam’s cooperators in killing their own patriots as democratic fighters!? You give the medal of courage to the invaders but you support the enemy’s of their own soldiers?!
7. Dear Mr. Corbette, it’s a scandal for an honorable person like you to support terrorists who are not only hated by Iranians but also by the international community. But the Rajavi’s cult made a big mistake supposing that it can get rid of this cul-de-sac by the support of such people ( like Corbette) since it is nothing but politics and in the politics you are only a bargaining chip against your own nation.
British Foreign Office announced on Tuesday that the British government still considers the banned MKO a terrorist organization. Mark Mallon Brown, British deputy foreign secretary for Asia and the United Nations, protested a recent verdict by the Commission for Reviewing the Status of Banned Organization. He noted that until the final verdict is issued about the Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO), the organization will be considered to be a terrorist organization. Lord Malloch Brown, a member of British House of Lords, pointed out that terrorism is something unacceptable; it does not matter who commits such offense. The British Prime Minister Gordon Brown had said earlier that the MKO has not changed its behavior, which makes it inelligible to be removed from the list of terrorist organizations. The UK has banned the MKO in line with a decision made by the European Union and another by the US, which is widely known to be cooperating with the terrorist organization, despite officially having it on its list terrorist entities.
PressTV- 06 Feb 2008
Mr. Bryan Wilfert, Richmond Hill Member of Parliament
225 Eat Beaver Creek
Richmond Hill, ON
Dear Mr. Wilfert,
In our meeting on Friday January 25, 2008, you asked me some questions regarding the situation of my sister, Somayeh Mohammady, as well as my parents who are also currently in Iraq, and the correspondent of the Canadian government. I have some doubts that I was able to answer your questions in a satisfactory manner since talking about this situation makes me too emotional and uncomfortable to properly formulate my thoughts and responses. I also wish to remind you that I am personally a victim of this brutal situation and suffered in the same condition that my sister experiences, for four years.
Since 1998, knowing the nature and means of this organization, my parents started an internal campaign to free and return my sister back to Canada. As you might be aware, up to 2003 and before toppling of Saddam Hussein, it was impossible to talk about or disagree with the MKO publicly. If they have this much power to force a young girl to denounce her family and call her parents agents of the Iranian regime just because they tried to take her out of a war zone and from the camp of an organization that has been branded terrorist by many Western governments, you can clearly understand how dangerous and impossible it could have been back than when the leadership of the MKO had the full support of Saddam and anything could have happened to my sister with no consequences to those responsible. Even after my 2004 release, and up to recently, I had serious concerns for my safety to talk about my own situation and just recently decided to come out and support my family regardless of the consequences to myself.
If, even now that this group is supposedly under the custody of American and International forces in Iraq, they can be such potential danger that the Canadian authorities call me to inform me about the threats to my parents lives in Iraq and ask me to force them to return to safety in Canada, you can imagine what it could have been like back in those years. For that reason in those years all my parents could do, that even than it was considered bold and risky by those aware of the MKO’s violent means, was to try to find influential people inside the organization or write to the Rajavi’s to beg for my sister’s freedom and safe return. You might find translated copies of those letters in the possession of our lawyer Ms. Pamila Bhardwaj as part of our legal file. Even the fact that my father agreed to send me to Iraq in 1999 was a hopeless attempt to find a way to bring her back without going public against such a malicious organization.
The rest is documented and I hope you have some knowledge of it. I was captured too and could not get out until 2004 after the regime change in Iraq that also reduced the power of the MKO leaders. Though at the beginning, and by the advice of those close to us, I pretended to be happy and willing as a cover up to set the ground for my sister’s release, as soon as they learned about my real intention, I was kept in solitary confinement and tortured in many brutal and inhumane ways. However, since I was a Canadian citizen at that time, my father was able to take me out in 2004 but, although my sister expressed her desire back then to go with us, since she did not have Canadian status after 7 years of absence from Canada, she was asked by the authorities at the time to remain there till they resolve this issue which they never did up to this point.
What is being used against my father by the MKO, and unfortunately being echoed by some Canadian authorities, is the fact that since that time my father made numerous trips to Iraq, ignoring the dangers on the ground. This should tell you how important the situation is to my family. We tried everything from desperately begging the Rajavi’s and the other leaders of the organization, setting up informative campaigns, following a lengthy legal process and physically going there and putting our lives in danger. What else do we need to try in order to make the Canadian government understand that we are extremely suffering and need to reunite with our sister and daughter? It is not only because we are worried for her and miss her, not because none of us can enjoy our lives knowing that one of us is trapped in such a horrible situation, not because we feel disempowered and humiliated for the constant rejection of our plea, not because knowing the conviction of my father that he will not stop until he brings her back and fulfills his duties as a father even if we lose everything, but simply because we are Canadians and the day we took the oath we were promised the same rights and protection as the rest of the citizens of this great country. Many people come to Canada every year from backward, violent and undemocratic corners of the world trying to make a new start and learn and follow those rules that make this country so great and outstanding. We are learning too but at the same time we need to feel belonging and that we are equally a part of it.
At the end, in my humble opinion, it does not reflect positively on our government to use or repeat the same allegations, against my family, as those used by the MKO mouthpieces. Every day in the past 5 years people left the camp, committed suicide or denounced this organization. The same label was used for all of them that they have been bought by a third party and have a shady agenda. We are opposing this mentality and ask you to use an open and fresh mind to help us.
With many regards,
Mohammad Mohammady
January 26, 2008
“It is with optimism that I usually regard elections. Win or lose, they are an opportunity for the voice of the people to be heard, but an exception to this will be the Iranian “elections” this March. Elections in Iran are neither free nor fair”. That is how Mark Williams, one out of 35 UK Parliamentarians that took the Government to court to have the ban on the MKO lifted, opens his article released in global politician. He is of the opinion that none of the elections inside Iran are fare and that the entire elected are pre-elected. True or false, the fact is that his source of information is biased toward Mojahedi-e Khalq terrorist cult and the world is well acquainted with the accuracy extent of the information released by the group.
Interestingly, he suggests the essentiality of a democratic change inside Iran. At least he has to err on the side of caution not to recommend an undemocratic, terrorist group for the accomplishment of the mission. He believes that the best solution is real democratic change in Iran and that, Britain and the EU must stop hindering the democratic Iranian Resistance as it strives for change.
Mr. Williams has to be notified that a globally proscribed terrorist group whose leading president-elect is neither elected by Iranian people nor even by a single ballot of the organization’s own insiders but promoted to the position by her egocentric husband is not legitimate at all to lead the campaign for the change inside Iran. Claimed by the organization and corroborated at least by two European court rulings, MKO has forsworn terrorism since 2001. Has anybody ever asked what terrorist deeds and atrocities the group has perpetrated against Iranian people before its claimed renunciation of terrorism?
How is that Mr. Williams has obtained information on the claimed number of 120,000 executed members and supporters of the organization while he knows nothing of the number of the key Iranian officials and innocent civilians who were mercilessly killed by the terrorist operation teams of the organization soon after the Iranian 1979 revolution? As a Member of Parliament, Mr. Williams has easy access to the approved evidences and reasons leading to the proscription of MKO as a terrorist organization. Even Mojahedin themselves know well that Iranian have closed the door on them; they only strive to get their foothold secure wherein they have taken refuge and are required to maintain a democratic conduct. February 5, 2008
THEY are Iraq’s forgotten terrorists, more than 3,000 fighters of the Mujahideen-e Khalq (MEK) languishing at one of their former military camps some 100km north of Baghdad.
‘They are definitely in a legal limbo. No one wants them,’ said Mr Said Boumedouha, a researcher at Amnesty International in London. No one, that is, except Iran.
The MEK, also known as the MKO or the People’s Mujahideen of Iran, is described as an Islamic Socialist group that advocates the overthrow of Iran’s government. Founded in Teheran in 1965, it opposed the rule of Iran’s shah, but was violently suppressed after the Iranian revolution as it was viewed as a threat by Ayatollah Khomeini’s newly established regime.
With its headquarters relocated to Iraq in 1986, the MEK fought with Saddam Hussein’s forces in the Iran-Iraq war of 1980-1988. They were organised as a conventionally armed brigade with an estimated fighting strength of 6,000 to 8,000 personnel. In mid-1994, Iraq’s Ministry of Defence announced that these fighters had been formally integrated with the country’s armed forces.
The MEK is designated as a terrorist organisation by the United States, the European Union and several individual countries – in part, it seems, because of anti-Western attacks and assassinations before the Iranian revolution. Teheran also views the MEK members as terrorists and has sought their extradition from Iraq.
There have been efforts to lift the yoke of this designation, including a 2002 call to end the US proscription signed by 150 members of Congress. In fact, some have suggested that Washington originally tagged it as a terrorist group in 1997 as a gesture to Iran’s newly elected reformist president.
The US proscription nevertheless remains in place, and the EU Council continues to blacklist the MEK despite a December 2006 ruling by the European Court of Justice that overturned Brussels’ edict freezing MEK funds.
There are currently some 3,360 MEK members at Camp Ashraf, located in Iraq’s Diyala province. About 110 others are defectors seeking refugee status and residing at the Ashraf refugee camp. Some have been voluntarily repatriated to Iran, claiming they were forced to join the MEK after being taken prisoner by Iraq in the Iran-Iraq war. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) says it has helped in the repatriation of 255 former fighters, most recently just this month, but the US-led Multinational Force in Iraq provides a figure of 380.
Though part of the Iraqi army, the MEK effectively declared itself neutral when coalition forces invaded the country in March 2003, and surrendered without a fight after suffering a few air attacks. But there is some confusion concerning its subsequent status.
‘The MEK were never captured or classified as prisoners of war (under the Third Geneva Convention). ‘Protected person’ status (under the Fourth Geneva Convention) was granted as part of a ceasefire agreement negotiated between the US and MEK,’ explained Major Winfield Danielson, a press officer with coalition forces in Baghdad.
‘Each member of the MEK was required to sign a document renouncing violence and agreeing not to take up arms. The MEK was also disarmed.’
However, this is contradicted by earlier statements that MEK members’ status was changed from ‘prisoners of war’ to ‘protected persons’ in June 2004.
‘The change in their status is linked to the change of authority (on June 28, 2004, when an interim government assumed control of Iraq). It was also prompted by a process that saw each individual disarm and renounce violence,’ Lieutenant-Colonel Barry Johnson, a US spokesman for detainee operations in Iraq, told me at that time.
The shift is curious in either case. ‘Protected person’ status applies to civilians, whereas the MEK personnel were uniformed soldiers in an established army – and affiliated with a proscribed terrorist group at that. ‘It is not the responsibility of the ICRC to independently determine their status,’ said ICRC official Dorothea Krimitsas in an e-mail from Geneva. The ICRC has never visited Camp Ashraf due to security concerns. But the coalition would contend that this may be unnecessary as the MEK members are not being detained.
‘Neither the active MEK members nor the former MEK refugees are being detained,’ said Major Danielson. ‘The Ashraf refugee camp refugees have every right to depart and travel in Iraq using an Iraqi-issued laissez-passer. They can also repatriate to Iran if they desire, or they may stay in the camp.
‘The active MEK members who live in Camp Ashraf have ‘protected persons’ status. As part of the ceasefire agreement, they may travel outside the city of Ashraf but must do so under the protection of coalition forces.’
Nor are MEK members at Camp Ashraf facing criminal charges, with Major Danielson noting that ‘they are not charged with criminal offences’. This appears peculiar in view of existing laws in the US and elsewhere that criminalise support for terrorist organisations.
According to the US State Department, for example: ‘It is unlawful for a person in the US or subject to the jurisdiction of the US to knowingly provide ‘material support or resources’ to a designated Foreign Terrorist Organisation.’
As prisoners of war, the MEK personnel would have to be ‘released and repatriated without delay after the cessation of hostilities’, according to Article 118 of the Third Geneva Convention. For ‘protected persons’ under the Fourth Geneva Convention ‘internment shall cease as soon as possible after the close of hostilities’, according to Article 133.
The ICRC maintains that the Iraq war ended with the transfer of sovereignty to the country’s interim government in June 2004, with the fighting since then characterised as ‘an internal conflict internationalised by the presence of multilateral forces’.
The coalition argues that the MEK personnel at Camp Ashraf are not being detained. But nor are they wandering about or relocating.
‘Our position is that they shouldn’t be returned to Iran due to the fear of torture and the death penalty. And they shouldn’t be handed over to Iraq for the same reason,’ said Amnesty’s Mr Boumedouha. ‘Their immediate future looks bleak.’
In this context, Mr Boumedouha sees the US-led coalition’s oversight of MEK personnel at Camp Ashraf as something of a humanitarian act in keeping with the ‘protected persons’ provision. If that is the case, the coalition is upholding the spirit of the Fourth Geneva Convention but perhaps not its legal mandate, as Article Six states: ‘In the case of occupied territory, the application of the present Convention shall cease one year after the close of military operations.’
However, some have suggested an alternative interpretation of the coalition’s treatment of the MEK people.
Unconfirmed allegations have surfaced in Teheran and elsewhere that the US Central Intelligence Agency is using the MEK for covert operations in Iran. Teheran failed to respond to a request to substantiate these claims.
Straits Times, Robert Karniol, Defence Writer